The embodiments herein relate generally to compositions of matter configured to increase efficiency in diesel engines.
Engine efficiency is a panacea of mechanical and chemical engineering. A more efficient engine will produce more work at a higher torque while consuming less fuel than an engine which is less efficient. Improved efficiency in gasoline engines have been developed in recent years, but improved efficiency in diesel engines has been panned.
Diesel fuel has a higher specific energy 130,000 BTU (British Thermal Units) per United States gallon (BTU/USG) content than gasoline, which has 115,000 BTU/USG, and so less fuel is required to be carried for a specific work output. Diesel fuel is safer to handle and store, since it has a high flash point, between 100 and 130 degrees Fahrenheit (which is 37.8 to 54.4 degrees Centigrade), whereas gasoline has a flash point of −45 degrees Fahrenheit (which is −42.8 degrees Centigrade) making gasoline considerably more flammable and hazardous to handle and store.
Various government agencies have required less carbon monoxide, total hydrocarbons and NOx (oxides of nitrogen) emissions from heavy-duty diesel engines during certain driving modes. In order to meet NOx limits, urea injection into the exhaust stream ahead of a new extra catalytic converter was introduced. Trucks then had to carry a solution of urea (NH2)2CO in water, along with the monitoring equipment for tank level. The effect of an aqueous urea solution in the hot exhaust stream is to chemically reduce the NOx to harmless nitrogen gas and water exiting the extra catalytic converter.
These tightening emission requirements meant that diesel engine designers had to make their engines more efficient and part of that requires that the exhaust be cleaner. In order to do this, combustion chemistry became a far more precisely controlled process, with computer controlled timing, mass air flow sensors, precision individual cylinder fuel injectors, exhaust gas recirculation and turbo chargers. With a more precisely controlled process, any deposits in the inlet manifold area and in the injectors or in the combustion chamber would degrade the performance of the engine, since any degradation increases fuel consumption and tail pipe emissions.
Embodiments of the disclosed invention take this problem from an entirely new angle focusing on efficiency in combustion chemistry itself without the need for changing hardware within the engine.